Grateful Dead Guide

May 11, 2018

There is currently no single, accurate page online where all the Grateful Dead shows and tapes from 1966 are listed. Setlist sources like deadlists and deadbase are considerably out of date, and recent tape and date discoveries are scattered across several sites, so I thought it would be useful to provide a simple complete show list for the year.

About 110 Dead shows are known from 1966, though there were certainly more forgotten shows played. We have recordings, mostly partial, from 21 shows (19% of the shows played, but in many cases only one surviving reel or a few songs per show) -- a smattering from winter/spring, a cluster in July and a few in November/December, and nothing at all from August through October.

Many of Owsley’s home recordings of the Dead’s rehearsals have surfaced, and are included along with the few film fragments that exist from the year. All the known songs played are listed.

Some of the many previous dating errors are noted, but it should be stressed that most 1966 tapes in the Vault have either the wrong dates or no dates on the labels, so a lot of the placements here are conjectural.

Thanks to Benjamin Miller for suggesting this list to me.

1966

1/1/66 Beaver Hall, Portland, OR (Sat.)

Acid Test. The date is uncertain (it could have been Christmas 1965).

1/4/66 The Matrix, San Francisco (Tues.)

1/5/66 The Matrix, San Francisco (Wed.)

1/7/66 The Matrix, San Francisco (Fri.)

SETLIST:

Mindbender
On the Road Again
She Belongs to Me
I'll Go Crazy
Can't Come Down
Death Don't Have No Mercy
Parchman Farm
Midnight Hour
The Only Time Is Now
Early Morning Rain
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

1/29/66 Sound City Studios, San Francisco – Members of the Dead were present at a Merry Pranksters recording session that night, apparently after playing at the Matrix, but this was not an Acid Test or a Dead performance. Garcia, asked to sing, protests that his voice is shot.

Though the reel is dated “2/6,” I don’t believe it actually comes from an Acid Test, but from a nearby show. (Bear, who recorded it, also said he did not attend this Acid Test.)

Weir, on the 1/28 tape, starts to announce an event happening in Los Angeles on Saturday the 5th, but is cut off. Lesh, in a rehearsal, also mentions playing in LA “Saturday night.” It’s unknown whether they thought this Acid Test would be on Saturday as usual, or if they had another show planned that day.

The tape labeled “2/25/66 Ivar Theater” was misdated – no actual Dead show at the Ivar Theater is known.

The Free Press newspaper ad for this Acid Test also states, “Saturday night too, but elsewhere,” so there may have been another event on the 26th.

2 or 3/66 Unknown location

RECORDING:

Big Railroad Blues

Sick and Tired

Empty Heart

(Released on “Rare Cuts & Oddities.” This show is a total mystery, unless more of it comes out of the Vault. A bandmember calls for “Otis” (You Don’t Have To Ask) after Sick and Tired, but it sounds like these three songs are consecutive.)

2 or 3/66 Bear’s house, Los Angeles

HOME RECORDING:

Walkin' The Dog*
Big Boss Man
Beat It On Down the Line
It's All Over Now Baby Blue
You See a Broken Heart*
One Kind Favor
Promised Land*

Phil Lesh starts to announce something happening on these dates on the 3/25 tape, but it cuts off. The assumption is Phil was announcing upcoming shows, but they’re unknown and most likely weren’t played.

4/66 Bear’s house, Los Angeles?

HOME RECORDING:

Good Lovin’

Standing on the Corner

Cream Puff War

(Released on “Rare Cuts & Oddities.” Due these songs' ties to the 5/19/66 show, I think this was recorded near the end of their Los Angeles stay. No home demos after the move to Olompali are known.)

(Though respectively labeled “Longshoreman’s Hall 3rd Night” & “1st Night,” it’s possible that neither of these tapes are actually from the Trips Festival. The “3rd Night” tape is the earlier show, in any case, since the “1st Night” BIODTL is considerably rearranged.)

5/7/66 Harmon Gym, U of California, Berkeley (Sat.)

SONG: Midnight Hour

5/14/66 Veterans Memorial Hall, Berkeley (Sat.)

5/19/66 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco (Thu.)

Straight Theater benefit.

RECORDING:

I

/Beat It On Down The Line
Standing On The Corner
Mindbender
It Hurts Me Too
Viola Lee Blues
I Know You Rider
It's A Sin
Sick And Tired
Cream Puff War/

II
Sittin' On Top Of The World
New Minglewood Blues
Cold Rain And Snow
Tastebud
Silver Threads and Golden Needles
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Good Lovin'
You Don't Have To Ask/

(* - released on “Birth of the Dead,” without date. Since the last four tracks didn’t circulate, they’re presumed to come from a Vault reel of this show, but they may be from 7/15. Deadbase asserts that “this is most or all of the second set, since the first reel of this show is no longer playable.” David Gans said twenty years ago that another reel of 7/17 was “unusable because of damage to the reel,” but that may not reflect the current Vault holdings. The lack of known reel labels makes it quite possible that a stray reel may be from 7/15.)

7/29/66 PNE Garden Auditorium, Vancouver, BC (Fri.)

Trips Festival.

RECORDING:

I

Standing On The Corner
I Know You Rider
Next Time You See Me
Sittin’ On Top Of The World
You Don't Have To Ask
Big Boss Man
Stealin'
Cardboard Cowboy
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Cream Puff War

(One site lists the Dead playing in Golden Gate Park with Country Joe & the Fish on 8/13, but they didn't. Deadlists asserts there were “numerous unscheduled performances” in Golden Gate Park that summer, but there’s no specific trace of one. The Dead were still living in Lagunitas, and moved to 710 Ashbury in September.)

8/19/66 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco (Fri.)

8/20/66 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco (Sat.)

8/26/66 IDES Hall, Pescadero (Fri.)

8/27/66 IDES Hall, Pescadero (Sat.)

Per one witness, the Dead did not play on the 28th. “It was a 3 day gig, but the Dead just played for 2 nights. There were
less than 10 of us there the first night, maybe 25 the 2nd night.”

9/66 house party, Loma Mar

SONG: Midnight Hour.Larry Rogers (who attended the Pescadero shows) writes: “I
told them I was having a party soon and asked if they would like to
come and to play. I asked them at the Pescadero event. Garcia was all
for it… It was my house… There
were no neighbors and we were surrounded by redwoods and off the beaten
path… There were maybe 20 folks there, lots of LSD… I remember that they
played Midnight Hour for about an hour.”

(Deadbase lists a 9/5/66 Rancho Olompali performance, which seems unlikely since they no longer lived there. But I’ll note that Monday, Sept. 5 was Labor Day, and an October newspaper article seems to describe a recent Olompali party, so it may be possible.)

9/11/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Sun.)

Both/And jazz club benefit.

SONGS: Beat It On Down the Line, Midnight Hour REVIEW: http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/02/september-11-1966-jazzrock-show.html(Ralph Gleason: "After a couple of warm-up numbers, including a fine Muddy Waters blues
sung by Pig Pen, the band went into "Midnight Hour" and Pig Pen made it
into a one-man blues project. He sang for almost 20 minutes..." Mojo Navigator: "The Grateful Dead, who were not billed, closed the show with a set
played on other people’s equipment. The first few songs were a bit
loose, but the Dead rounded into form with a good version of “Happy
Home,” then did one of the best “Midnight Hour”s I’ve ever heard by
them. Pigpen was in excellent voice, as was Bob Weir.")

9/16/66 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco (Fri.)

9/17/66 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco (Sat.)

9/23/66 Pioneer Ballroom, Suisun City (Fri.)

9/24/66 Pioneer Ballroom, Suisun City (Sat.)

9/30/66 International Room, SF State College, San Francisco (Fri.)

10/1/66 Women’s Gym, SF State College, San Francisco (Sat.)

10/2/66 Commons lawn, SF State College, San Francisco (Sun.)

“Whatever It Is.”

Garcia also apparently played the organ in the Pranksters’ broadcast on 10/2:

SONG: Alice D. Millionaire? (According to Deadbase, but how did they know? No source is known. It may just be speculation since this was an “LSD rally” - the SF Chronicle's "LSD Millionaire" article on Owsley had appeared only the previous day.)

10/7/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Fri.)

The tape that used to circulate with this date was a fake from other dates.

The poster for the regular Bill Graham Fillmore run lists a 2-7 pm show on Sunday, while the benefit poster lists a 3-midnight show, so the listed times clash. If the Dead played two shows at the Fillmore that day, the times must have been rearranged, but it’s possible the usual Sunday afternoon show was simply replaced by the benefit.

(Formerly thought to be from 9/16/66. Released on “Vintage Dead” and “Historic Dead” with no date, these songs could come from either show, in any order. An announcer introduces Midnight Hour, “Once again, the Grateful Dead,” which may be an encore.)

After the 9pm-9am New Year’s show at the Fillmore, the Dead then proceeded to play a free “New Year’s Day Wail” show in the park the next day. Not surprisingly, it was the last show they ever played on January 1st.

(Released on “Rare Cuts & Oddities.” According to Rock Scully’s book, demos of Early Morning Rain and You Don’t Have To Ask were also recorded, among others (though he may have confused these with earlier studio sessions). The band may also have taped demos at Coast Recorders. See http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2011/10/dead-in-studio-1966.html )

NOTE ON SONG TITLES

Deadbase 50 notes that some familiar song titles went by different names at the time:

You Don’t Have To Ask was called Otis On A Shakedown Cruise. (Scully calls it that in a March ’66 newspaper article; the Dead also call for “Otis” before playing it on 5/19 and on 7/30.)

Cardboard Cowboy was called No Left Turn Unstoned - Weir introduces it that way on 7/29, and Lesh gave the title in a later interview. The Dead also nicknamed it “The Monster" (because "it was just so big and ugly and hard to play," Lesh said).